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The Ohio Presidents 



AN ADDRESS 

Delivered at the Ohio Centennial Celebration, 
ChiUicothe, Ohio, May 20, 1903 



By THOMAS EWING, JR. ^ i J_ 

^7 



Reprinted from the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publications. 



PRESS OF FRED J. HEER 
Nineteen Hundred and Three 



THE OHIO PRESIDENTS, 



THOMAS EWING, JR. 



Five Presidents of the United States out of the twenty-five 
were born in Ohio. If President Garfield and President Mc- 
Kinley had been permitted to Hve out the terms for which 

they were elected, we should have had 
a period beginning with 1869, and em- 
bracing thirty-six years, within which 
but one man not an Ohioan by birth 
occupied the White House. 

The history of the country fur- 
nishes only one parallel for this emi- 
nence among the states. Within the 
borders of Virginia seven of the Pres- 
idents were born. The parallel is sin- 
gularly close. From 1789 until 1825,, 
a period likewise of exactly thirty- 
six years, there was but one Presi- 
dent not a native of Virginia — John 

THOMAS EWING, JR. . , . , , , ^ ^, ^^ 

Adams, of Massachusetts, i he count 
by birth gives Virginia the advantage by two ; but, one of the 
Virginians, John Tyler, elected as Vice President, may fairly be 
excluded ; and President William Henry Harrison, who was born 
in Virginia and was a citizen of Ohio by adoption, is claimed 
by both states. 

Moreover, another splendid Ohioan, William Tecumseh Sher- 
man, would have received the Republican nomination in 1884 
and all but certainly have been elected, had he not announced 
that he would not permit his name, to be brought before *he 
convention, would not accept the nomination if tendered to him, 
and would not serve as President if elected. There have been 
notable instances of men who have felt constrained by considera- 




510 



Ohio Centennial. 511 

tions of honor to decline a nomination. Major McKinley twice 
furnished such an example ; Samuel L. Southard is said to have 
declined the vice-presidential nomination in 1840 (which, as the 
event proved, carried with it the presidency), because his failure 
to secure a solid delegation from New Jersey for Mr. Clay had 
been criticised. But General Sherman is the only man in our 
history to refuse what he believed to be an offer of the presidency, 
when free to accept. 

There is an incident now quite forgotten, except as a family 
tradition, which I trust that I may be pardoned for mentioning. 
In the Whig Convention of 1848, after General Taylor had been 
nominated to the presidency, a member from Pennsylvania, 
seconded by a member from Tennessee, put in nomination to 
the vice-presidency Thomas Ewing, of Ohio. The nomination 
would have passed almost without opposition, had not an Ohio 
delegate, in the name of the Ohio delegation, withdrawn it, pro- 
fessing falsely that he did so with authorization from Mr. Ewing 
himself. But for this bit of trickery, Millard Filmore's place 
as thirteenth President would have been taken by an Ohio man. 

The explanation of the supremacy of this State has been 
found in the fact that through it passed by far the larger part 
of that migration from the East which has shifted the center 
of population and the weight of political influence into the Ohio 
basin. It was not a mad rush like that of the argonauts across 
the plains in 1849. It was like the spreading of a forest, which 
takes root as it advances ; it was like the maneuver of the Roman 
legion, when the younger and more lightly armed troopers passed 
through the line of veterans to engage in the battle. 

In a speech delivered before the Ohio Society of New 
York (May, 1886), Benjamin Harrison said: 

"After the feeble thirteen Colonies had struggled through years of 
bitter war, and had overcome the greatest empire in the world, that grand 
band of patriots who had made known in bleeding marks of footprints 
on the snow at Valley Forge their devotion to liberty and constitutional 
government — these men — poor in everything save honor, turned out of 
their old-time place by the vicissitudes of the long and wearying war 
— these men looked to some new field where they could repair the 
fortunes they had tost. And that high tide of intelligence and patriotism 



512 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

was lifted above the crest of the Alleghenies and it poured into the 
valley of the Ohio. It was the first basin to receive the fresh crystal waters 
of the spring in their pristine purity, when they broke forth from the 
mountain-side where devotion, patriotism and courage hid seen them 
born. Ohio stood at the gateway of the West, through which passed the 
tide that was to people and develop the mighty Northwest." 

In 1796 there were 15,000 whites in the Northwest Territory. 
When General Harrison welcomed LaFayette to Cincinnati in 
1825, the population of Ohio alone was seven hundred thous- 
and; by 1840, with a million and a half, she had become the 
third state in the Union. This place she held imtil passed by 
Illinois in the decade ending with the year 1890. 

Kentucky and Tennessee had been settled largely by Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, which had owned their territory ; but 
the population of Ohio was formed by the mingling of the blood 
of all of the Colonial states. Immigrants came from the entire 
region which includes Maine on the north and the Carolinas on 
the south. Virginia had her military bounty lands ; Con- 
necticut her western reserve ; New Jersey and Pennsylvania 
founded Cincinnati ; New England, Marietta. Ohio was thus the 
first-born child, when the young republic grappled with the great 
problem of continental dominion. Her settlers, as their de- 
scendants, were native-born Americans, living under free and 
equal laws, owning their own homes, knowing neither wealth 
nor poverty, and inheriting in purest form the great ideals and 
traditions of the Revolution. Such a people sprang to the front 
instantly and inevitably when our national existence was in 
jeopardy; and after the terrible and tragic strtiggle of the Civil 
War was over, Ohio's sons, by natural selection, became party- 
leaders and heads of the nation. 

My subject calls for a discussion of all six of otir Presi- 
dents. It is manifestly impossible within the limits set to make 
more than a passing reference to so many and such great men. 
But I must, at least, call the honored roll. 

Of William McKinley, whose splendid service and lovable 
character are known intimately to all, it is too soon to speak 
fully. His administration was generally so successfvil that it is 



Ohio Centennial. 513 

difficult to choose where to bestow special praise. If I may be 
permitted to hazard an opinion, the Chinese incident called out the 
finest exhibition of his statesmanship and diplomacy. But of 
one thing we may be sure : that he will be remembered as the 
President to whom, above all of the others, fell the great privi- 
lege, nobly exercised, of drawing together the sympathies and 
aspirations of north and south for effecting the policies of our 
re-united country. Deep down under the passions and bitter- 
ness which slavery and the Civil War aroused was a noble feel- 
ing of brotherhood, cherished most strongly by those who were 
actually engaged in the conflict. It found expression in ( ieneral 
Grant's historic saying, "Let us have peace." It was dear to 
General Hayes and General Garfield. It was evidenced by the 
great number of northern soldiers who, from sympathy for the 
south, after the warfare was over changed their party affiliation. 
It found perhaps most lasting expression in the policy of recon- 
ciliation which was so notable a feature of Ala j or McKinley's 
administration. 

Benjamin Harrison, though a native of Oliio and a graduate 
of our Miami University, politically was a son of Indiana. Par- 
tisan ridicule represented him as hidden beneath his grand- 
father's hat. He far exceeded his grandfather in intellect and 
training; and in the years (all too few) to which his life was 
extended after his term as President, his splendid abilities and 
great labors in his profession won for him a career which has 
been equalled by no ex-Presidents of the United States other 
than Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams. 

James Abram Garfield, intellectually supreme perhaps 
among them all, appealed with unrivalled force to the young men 
of the country. While a member of the House, where, had he re- 
mained, he would have been chosen Speaker, he was elected to the 
Senate and to the Presidency. His service as a Representative 
has seldom been exceded in length, and never in distinction. But 
he lived for so short a time after induction into the office of 
President, that, as Mr. Blaine in his eulogy said, "His reputation 
in historv will rest largely upon his service in the House of Rep- 
resentatives." 
33 o. c. 



.'514 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

Rutherford B. Hayes, simple christian gentleman and pat- 
riot that he was, suffered from the fiercest political antagonism 
since the impeachment-trial of Andrew Johnson. For this, how- 
ever, he was not responsible. The democratic party controlled the 
House of Representatives, which joined in the agreement to sub- 
mit the count to the Electoral Commission. President Hayes' 
administration was distinguished by its purity, and by the achieve- 
ment of the resumption of specie payments which has become a 
part of the settled financial policy of the government. And, how- 
ever we may differ as to the wisdom of this and other matters of 
policy, he will always be held by the entire country in grateful 
remembrance as the President under whom local self-government 
was restored in the southern states. 

Back of these comes Ulysses S. Grant. He stands first 
among them all by reason of his transcendent military services. 
Great as a soldier and patriot, rather than as a statesman, his ca- 
reer, in its truly significant aspects, belongs to the history of 
Ohio's sons in the Civil War. 

It is the first of the Ohio Presidents, General William Henry 
Harrison, "Old Tip," as his followers lovingly called him, to 
whose election and administration I chiefly invite your attention. 
My father's father was his Secretary of the Treasury. My mother's 
grandfather. General Reasin Beall, of Wooster, Ohio, was one of 
his companions-in-arms in an early campaign ; he was also an 
elector-at-large, called a senatorial elector, in 1840, and was of- 
fered, but declined, the secretaryship of war. Harrison's char- 
acter and career have, therefore, strongly appealed to me. But 
aside from personal interest, it has seemed to me that at this 
centennial celebration we should recall the things that have 
passed from popular memory, rather than discuss and enlarge 
upon what is known of all men. 

William Henry Plarrison was born in Virginia in the year 
1774, a S' n of one of the si'^'ners of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. 

Receiving a military commission from President Washington 
in 1701, Harrison served under General Wayne in the campaign 
and battle of Miami Rapids, and attained the rank of captain. 



Ohio Ccniennial. 515 

In 1797 he was appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory, 
which embraced Ohio. In 1799 and 1800 he was a delegate to 
Congress. Here he procured the passage of an act requiring 
that the pubhc lands be surveyed and sold in small tracts. There- 
tofore, no lands were sold in sections of less than three or four 
thousand acres, and it was impossible for the emigrants generally 
to acquire their own farms. When, years afterward, he was 
nominated for President, one of the reasons most strongly urged 
for his election was : 

"He is the father of the present admirable system of disposing of 
the pubhc lands, which has been so perfected that a poor man who can 
make up $100 may become an independent freeholder."* 

A note by Judge Burnet to the fifth of his famous letters 
contains a reference to General Harrison's political views at this 
time. It is interesting, also, for its reference to Mr. Jefferson^ 
and I quote it in full, as follows : 

"I can now recollect only four individuals in this place and neigh- 
borhood [Cincinnati] who then [1800] advocated the election of Mr. Jef- 
ferson against Mr. Adams. These were Major Zeigler, General Harrison, 
William McMillan and John Smith. There might have been one or two 
others not remembered. . . . [One man said.] 'When I am convinced 
that skill in describing the qualities and beauties of a flower or in dis- 
cussing the wing of a butterfly qualifies a man for the duties of the presi- 
dential chair, I will vote for Mr. Jefferson.' " 

Evidently, knowledge beyond the common in anv but one's 
recognized field of activity was dangerous then, as it is to-day. 

After his brief services in Congress, General Harrison was 
appointed Governor of Indiana and superintendent of Indian 
afi^airs. He negotiated thirteen treaties with the Indians, one of 
v/hich added to the public domain a territory twice as large as the 
state of Ohio. In an interview at North Bend with a cor- 
respondent of Horace Greeley's paper, "The Log Cabin," General 
Harrison spoke of his office as Governor and his services as fol- 
lows: 



* From the Harrisonian, Zanesville, January 22, 1840. 



516 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

"Mr. Jefferson, by his commission as Governor of Indiana and Upper 
Louisian*a invested me with an authority greater than a Roman prO" 
consul. . . . 

"I think I have personally obtained for the country from the Indians 
more millions of acres of land than the sword of a conqueror ever per-« 
manently won, and I trust, never dishonestly." 

Besides his great services as Governor and negotiator with 
the Indians, he made an heroic defense of Fort Meigs (May, 
1813), and fought two important battles, one upon a little stream 
called Tippecanoe (November 7, 181 1 ) , where he broke the charms 
and the influence of Tecumseh's great brother, the Prophet ; 
the other on the river Thames (October 5, 1813), where Tecum- 
seh was killed. In the latter campaign he had at one time as 
m.any as 10,000 volunteer militia in his command. The victory 
on the Thames and Commodore Oliver H. Perry's victory at Put- 
in-Bay together saved to this country the State of Michigan. 

The difficulties of campaigning in the wilderness may be 
judged by the fact that every barrel of flour, by the time it reached 
the army, had cost one hundred dollars. Judge Burnet, in his 
§peech in the Whig National Convention of 1839, said: 

"A person who has not an accurate knowledge of the condition of 
the northwestern portion of Ohio at the time of the late war, when it 
was an unbroken wilderness, without inhabitants other than aborigines, 
without roads, bridges, ferries or improvements of any kind, cannot form 
any idea of the difficulties General Harrison encountered in feeding, sus- 
taining and keeping together his army. The difficulties and perplexities 
which beset him during his campaigns are known to but few, and cannot 
be justly appreciated by any; yet by unceasing activity and by the efforts 
of his powerful mind, he overcame them all. . . . It is not generally 
known that the fleet built at Erie by which the command of the lakes 
was obtained was a project recommended by General Harrison, and that 
it was adopted by Mr. Madison in consequence of his unbounded confi- 
dence in the prudence and sound judgment of him who proposed it." 

Subsequently to these military services, General Harrison 
was a Representative in Congress from Ohio ; served in the Sen- 
ate of the United States from 1825 to 1828; was sent as minister 
to the Republic of Columbia ; and, in the campaign of 1836, was 
the most prominent candidate of the Whigs for the presidency, 
but was defeated by VanBuren whom he in turn defeated in 1840. 



Ohio Centennial. 517 

During the later years of his hfe, the General was living 
in his famous old residence on the banks of the Ohio at North 
Bend, where he enjoyed the life and reputation incident to his true 
position, that of one of the great first-settlers in the Northwest 
Territory. In person he was lithe and wiry but not tall, simple 
in manner, plain of dress, with the keen eye and weather-beaten 
face of the woodsman, and the sturdy, kindly, comfortable counte- 
nance of the Virginia bottom-lands farmer. 

He had received more than the usual education of his asso- 
ciates. Above all, he was a student of nature and of Indian life. 
In an interesting discourse on the xA.borigines in the Valley of the 
Ohio, delivered before the Ohio Historical Society at Columbus in 
the year 1837, ^^ displays an intimate knowledge of the Indians, 
of the great forests, and of the remains of ancient peoples found 
along the Ohio River. Arguing for the antiquity of these re- 
mains and basing his arguments upon the character of the forests 
overgrowing them, he has one passage which is notable for first- 
hand observation of nature and for genuine eloquence. It is as 
follows : 

"The process by which nature restores the forest to its original 
state, after being once cleared, is extremely slow. In our rich lands, it 
is, indeed, soon covered again with timber, but the character of the growth 
is entirely different, and continues so, through many generations of men. 
In several places on the Ohio, particularly upon the farm which I occupy, 
clearings were made in the first settlement, abandoned, and suffered to 
grow up. Some of them, now to be seen, of nearly fifty years' growth, 
have made so little progress toward attaining the appearance of the im- 
mediately contiguous forest, as to induce any man of reflection to deter- 
mine that at least ten times fifty years would be necessary before its 
complete assimilation could be effected. The sites of the ancient works 
on the Ohio present precisely the same appearance as the circumjacent 
forest. You find on them all that beautiful variety of trees which gives 
such unrivaled richness to our forests. This is particularly the case on 
the fifteen acres included within the walls of the work, at the mouth of 
the Great Miami, and the relative proportions of the different kinds of 
timber are about the same. The first growth on the same kind of land, 
once cleared, and then abandoned to nature, on the contrary, is more 
homogeneous — often stinted to one, or two, or at most three kinds of 
timber. If the ground had been cultivated, yellow locust, in many places, 
will spring up as thick as garden peas. If it has not been cultivated, the 
black and white walnut will be the prevailing growth. The rapidity with 
which these trees grow for a time, smothers the attempt of other kinds 



518 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

to vegetate and grow in their shade. The more thrifty individuals soon 
overtop the weaker of their own kind, which sicken and die. In this way, 
there is soon only as many left as the earth will well support to maturity. 
All this time the squirrels may plant the seed of those trees which serve 
them for food, and by neglect suffer them to remain, — it will be in vain: 
the birds may drop the kernels, the external pulp of which have con- 
tributed to their nourishment, and divested of which they are in the best 
state for germinating, still it will be of no avail; the winds of heaven 
may waft the winged seeds of the sycamore, cottonwood and maple, and 
a friendly shower may bury them to the necessary depth in the loose and 
fertile soil — but still without success. The roots below rob them of 
moisture, and the canopy of limbs and leaves above 'intercept the rays of 
the sun, and the dews of heaven; the young giants in possession, like 
another kind of aristocracy, absorb the whole means of subsistence, and 
leave the mass to perish at their feet. This state of things will not, how- 
ever, always continue. If the process of nature is slow and circuitous, 
in putting down usurpation and establishing the equality which she loves, 
and which is the great characteristic of her principles, it is sure and 
effectual. The preference of the soil for the first growth ceases with its 
maturity. It admits of no succession, upon the principles of legitimacy. 
The long undisputed masters of the forest may be thinned by the light- 
ning, the tempest, or by diseases peculiar to themselves; and whenever 
this is the case, one of the oft-rejected of another family will find be- 
tween its decaying roots, shelter and appropriate food; and springing 
into vigorous growth, will soon push its green foliage to the skies, through 
the decayed and withering limbs of its blasted and dying adversary — the 
soil itself yielding it a more liberal support than to any scion from the 
former occupant. It will easily be conceived what a length of time it 
will require for a denuded tract of land, by a process so slow, again to 
clothe itself with the amazing variety of foliage which is the character- 
istic of the forests of this region. Of what immense age, then, must be 
those works, so often referred to, covered, as has been supposed by those 
who have the best opportunity of examining them, with the second growth 
after the ancient forest state Jiad been regainedf" 

There can be no dotibt that there existed a real and wide- 
spread enthusiasm for the hero of Tippecanoe. His nomination, 
hke his election, was due to a tremendous popular upheaval. As 
William Creighton, Jr., of Chillicothe, wrote (Sept. 3, 1835) : 

"Old Ross will move this fall in all her strength. . . . We intend 
to call a great meeting for the last Saturday in this month to nominate 
Harrison for the Presidency. We cannot get along without heroism. W'c 
shall present in strong terms the hero of three wars, and will sweep the 
country. Our opponents will not see for the dust we raise." 



Ohio Centennial. 51S 

An old newspaper says : 

"A gentleman passing through the State of Indiana recently, says 
he stopped at a tavern in one of the principal towns, where a register of 
the names of travelers v/as kept, and each individual was desired to 
write opposite his name the name of the person he would prefer for Presi- 
dent, and that nine out of ten were for Harrison, but few for Clay, and 
only one for Van Buren out of a list of several hundred." 

The Ohio Convention, held at Columbus, February 22, 1836, 
where General Harrison was first put in nomination for President, 
is described in a letter from John M. Creed, of Lancaster (Feb. 
23, 1836), as "the largest ever held in the western country, and 
perhaps in the Union." Everybody was for Harrison. In the 
resolutions Clay and Webster were lauded to the skies. They 
were eulogized as "god-like men;" but when it came to nominat- 
ing a candidate Harrison got all of the votes. 

In the great national Whig Convention which met at Harris- 
burg in December, 1839, to place their candidate for President in 
nomination. General Harrison was overwhelmingly the choice. 

The campaign which followed will always be memorable. 
A few of the war-cries of the Whigs are well-known : 

"Van, Van is a used-up man"; 

"She's went, 

"Hell-bent, . 

"For Governor Kent" : 
"The Whigs, the Whigs, they come, they come" ; 

and the like. 

Van Buren was the "fox holed at Kinderhook ;" or after the 
analogy of "Old Hickory" was dubbed "Slippery Elm." 

The Loco-focos lacked the war cries, but were ready with 
attacks on General Harrison. These are fairly summarized by 
the Harrison Eagle (May 16, 1840) as follows: 

"Among the serious, fatal and unanswerable objections which the 
Locos bring against General Harrison, we find the following, namely : 
He is poor, ignorant and a coward — drinks hard cider, eats crackers, and 
treats his company with the same, instead of champagne — is an old 
granny — the petticoat candidate — the imbecile — the Log-cabin and hard- 



520 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

cider farmer — who works with his own hands — is under the supervision 
of a committee who receive and answer letters, questions, etc., — is en- 
titled to no credit for any services, or bravery, during the last war, all 
his victories having been achieved by those under him." 

In point of fact, Gen. Harrison was proud and tenacious of 
his opinions and quite ready to express them freely. The Com- 
mittee of Correspondence was estabhshed largely to save him 
labor and postage. In a letter quoted in the Boone's Lick (Mo.) 
.Times, he says: 'T have actually from necessity been obliged 
to give up the correspondence of many of my best friends." 

It was unwise to call attention to his poverty. Millions of 
the public money had passed through his hands, and they were 
empty and clean ; and on his farm at North Bend were the fam- 
ilies, not small, of three deceased sons, and an adopted child the 
orphan daughter of one of his military aides, all entirely depend- 
ent upon him. The Loco-foco sneers only gave zest to counter- 
cries such as the cry of "Gold-spoons," raised by the Whigs be- 
cause President Van B'uren had had gilded some of the spoons of 
the White-House furnishings. 

As to his personal courage, it was vouched for, with one 
voice, by all of his old soldiers, including the Loco-foco Vice- 
President Richard M, Johnson, who "slew the great Tecumseh." 
Some of the stay-at-homes of 1812 tried to question it, but to no 
avail. The Loco-foco Governor of New Hampshire, who called 
Harrison a coward in 1840, had named a son for him during the 
war of 1812. 

But the Locos committed their fatal blunder in ridiculing 
the General's log-cabin and his hard-cider hospitality. Thereby 
they gave the Whigs something popular to shout about, and a fine 
drink to wet their whistles with. For it was a time when in many 
sections of the country log-cabins were still the only dwellings 
known. There was not a section in which they were not numer- 
ous, and the "raisin" was an event for neighborly service and 
merry-making. Mr. Webster, at Saratoga (Aug. 19, 1840) said: 

"It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin, but my elder 
brothers and sisters were born in a log-cabin, raised amid the snow- 
drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early as that when the smoke 
first rose from its crude chimney and curled over the iaozen liills, there 



Ohio Centennial. 521 

was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the 
settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to 
it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them the hardships 
endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to 
dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, 
and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know 
of this primitive family abode." 

So it very naturally came about that log-cabins were raised 
in every hamlet, and the large cities like New York were dotted 
with them. Smaller cabins were mounted on wagons. A friend, 
born in 1840, told me recently that she remembers as a child hav- 
ing for a play-house one of these cabins, large enough for a 
number of children to play in, which had been hauled about over 
the whole of the northern part of the State of New York, and 
which her father bought at the close of the campaign. 

Mr. Carl Schurz, in his admirable life of Clay, has described 
the campaign briefly and vividly as follows : 

"There has probably never been a presidential campaign with more 
enthusiasm and less thought than the Whig campaign of 1840. As soon 1 
as it was fairly started, it resolved itself into a popular frolic. There was 
no end of monster mass meetings, with log-cabins, raccoons and hard 
cider. One-half of the American people seemed to have stopped work 
to march in processions behind brass bands or drum and fife, to attend 
large picnics, and to sing campaign doggerel about "Tippecanoe and Tyler 
too." The array of speakers on the Whig side was most imposing : Clay, 
Webster, Corwin, Ewing, Clayton, Preston, Choate, Wise, Reverdy John- 
son, Everett, Prentiss, Thompson of Indiana, and a host of lesser lights. 
But the immense multitudes gathered at the meetings came to be amused, 
not to be instructed. They met, not to think and deliberate, but to laugh 
and shout and sing." 

But the songs were not all doggerel. It is true that we 
cannot defend more than a few lines of "Tippecanoe and Tyler 
too," nor that song, a mere snatch of which has come down to 
me by tradition, about the Whig party, running : 

"they cannot spile her. 
While we have Tom the wagon-boy 
And Tom the old salt-biler." 

"Biler" was an important word in the Whig rhyming dic- 
tionary. 



522 OJiio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

"Go it, Harrison, 

Come it, Tyler, 
And we'll bust 

Van Buren's biler." 

There were, however, some stirring songs. All the familiar 
airs — "Hail, Columbia," "The Old Oaken Bucket," "Auld Lang 
Syne," "Hail to the Chief," "Bonnets of Blue," "Little Pig's 
Tail," "There's no Luck in the House," "Old Rosin the Beau," — 
were brought into requisition, to carry to the hearts of the peo- 
ple verses telling of "the battles, sieges, fortunes," which their 
old hero had passed, and of the good times he would bring in 
again. Take this song for the Tippecanoe battleground gather- 
ing as a sample : 

"Come from the cabins, come ! 
Sons of the brave and free, 
As your fathers came when the stirring drum 
Beat loud for Liberty ! 
'Tis Freedom calls, as then 

She called upon your sires. 
Go forth like men, to the field again / 

Where burned their battle fires." 

As Mr. Schurz says, the meetings were immense. I cite a 
few instances : Twelve thousand are reported at Springfield, 
Illinois ; fifteen thousand at Greenville, Ohio ; at Ft. Meigs, thirty 
thousand ; and on the Tippecanoe battlefield forty thousand gath- 
ered ; the meeting lasted for three days, and three thousand two 
hundred wagons were actually counted upon the grounds. At 
Hagerstown, Maryland, one of the speakers said he did not num- 
ber the crowd "by hundreds or by thousands, but by acres." At 
Syracuse, New York, in September, it is said that fifty thousand 
people were present. A newspaper of the day reports of the 
meeting as follows ; • 

"A whole fleet of boats from the West came up the enlarged por- 
tion of the canal, three abreast, in a long line of procession. Every boat 
had its banners and decorations and the fine looking and well clad free- 
men that thronged them made the welkin ring with their music, joyous 
melodies and enthusiastic hurrahs." 



Ohio Centennial. 523 

At Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a procession was formed up- 
wards of three miles in length, eight abreast, the crowd in the 
procession and in the town being estimated at seventy-five thou- 
sand. 

At Chillicothe, where the idea of log-cabin raising originated, 
the procession at the first meeting. May i6, 1840, included a 
wagon carrying a Buckeye-cabin drawn by six horses, with a 
barrel of hard-cider outside the cabin, raccoon skins nailed to the 
logs, and a live raccoon climbing about the roof. The Kingston 
boys brought a canoe thirty feet long. The cabin raised was 
forty feet by seventy-five feet, and could seat a thousand people. 
On the occasion of General Harrison's visit to Chillicothe in Sep- 
tember of that year, the double column of carriages and the pro- 
cession of horsemen eight deep which went out to meet him ex- 
tended over two miles. The General came down the road into the 
town in a barouche drawn by four horses and followed by an es- 
cort of horsemen and carriages a mile in length. A single citi- 
zen of the towm, Henry Brush, is said to have entertained at 
table twenty-five hundred guests. 

The procession at the log-cabin raising at St. Louis, the 
home of "the Hon. Gold Humbug Benton,'' is described at length 
in the Harrison Eagle of May 30, 1840, and more briefly as fol- 
lows : First, the Tippecanoe Club with a banner showing an 
eagle strangling a green and yellow serpent whose tortuous 
folds were terminated with a fox's head ;> citizens with banners ; 
ladies in carriages ; the boys of the various schools ; uniformed 
companies with coon-skins dangling from their heads to their 
waists ; horsemen ; procession of laborer's carts ; laborers on foot 
with shovels, pick-axes, etc. ; printers with a press mounted on a 
car, printing Tippecanoe songs which were distributed among the 
crowd ; drays loaded with barrels of hard cider ; a log-cabin drawn 
by six horses with the inscription "The string of the latch never 
pulled in" ; blacksmiths with a forge and the motto "Strike for 
our country's good"; joiners and cabinet-makers with a miniature 
shop and men at work ; a "tippe-canoe" drawn by six horses and 
filled with men ; two smaller canoes filled with men throwing 
the lead and singing out the soundings ; Fort Meigs, filled with 
soldiers, drawn by twelve yoke of oxen, ; in the Fort was a band of 



524 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

drums and fifes, also cannons ; the brick-layers ; a log-cabin with 
an Indian canoe behind drawn by four horses ; a regiment of 
Suckers ; and finally, a body of men on foot with inscriptions : 
'■'Rhode Island victory," "Connecticut election 4,600 majority," 
and a comical looking wag with his thumb on his nose and twirl- 
ing his fingers in Sam Weller style and the legend "You can't 
come it, Matty." 

But the grand monster meeting, called, according to the lan- 
guage of the campaign, a "convention," was held at Dayton, then 
a town of five or six thousand inhabitants. Here, on September 
loth, was gathered a crowd which, by actual survey of the space 
covered with people around the speakers' stand, and an allowance 
of four persons to the square yard, was estimated to number 
more than seventy-five thousand, while fully twenty thousand 
were scattered about the town and its vicinity. The meeting be- 
came famous as the convention of one hundred thousand ! 

This gathering is described in the Cincinnati Gazette of the 
time as follows : 

"Delegates with their appropriate banners were there from Louisi- 
ana, Kentucky and Indiana. Old Kentuck told us she had finished her 
work and bade us go and do likewise. Louisiana pledged a majority of 
4,200 for 'Old Tip' in November, and Indiana related a comical story of 
the way in which one Matty Van scampers down hill yelling 'Stop that 
cider barrel !' whenever he hears a report from one of the states as 
they successively cast their votes against the usurpers and spoilsmen. 

"There is living in and animating our breasts at this time the one 
general impression of an immense congregation 'of the people, above 
whose countless heads rise banners without number, and among whom 
move hither and yon log-cabins, mechanics' shops, a fleet of ships, 
canoes, cars, filled with young misses singing patriotic songs, bands of 
musicians playing national airs, emblems of freedom, denunciations of 
tyranny and badges of Union which proclaim that one purpose gathered 
all this together, by one spirit is it pervaded, and to one result does it 
tend." 

At this time there were not more than fifty miles of steam- 
railway in the Northwest Territory. The only other means of 
conveyance were by the rivers, canals, and wagon-road. _ Sixteen 
canal boats laden with people, on February 21st, made the trip 
from Chillicothe to Columbus, in a pouring rain. It took twenty 
hours to cover the fifty miles. As for travel by road, an old 



Ohio Centennial. 525 

story tells of a traveler who saw a hat in the road and picked 
it up ; under the hat was a man and under the man was a horse, 
sunk down in the mud. 

Of course the crowds had their fun. They were American 
people, men, women and children, full of humor, good humor. 
Of course, large quantities of hard-cider were consumed. It was 
a campaign when staid old church-going farmers went about with 
canteens of hard-cider hung from their necks ; and we, perhaps, 
must not discredit the statement of the Toronto Patriot that "the 
folks who now so loudly cry out for hard-cider at the same time 
prudently drink rum." A raising had always been a time for 
jollification. Thomas Corwin, the Whig candidate for Governor 
of Ohio, was, with the possible exception of Harrison, the great- 
est drawing card. He complained bitterly in later years that he 
would go down in history as a buffoon. He was, in fact, a man 
of lofty ideals and fine sense ; but as a humorous stump-speaker, 
we probably never have had his equal in this country. One of his 
speeches during the campaign of 1840, delivered in the House of 
Representatives, will always be remembered. Isaac E. Crary, a 
young member from Michigan, attacked General Harrison's mili- 
tary career and reputation ; and in the course of his speech, mod- 
estly let it be known that he himself was a brigadier-general of 
militia in Michigan on the peace establishment. Corwin, in his 
memorable reply, suggests that Alexander the Great might have 
made a man of himself in the art of war, had he been a member of 
Congress and heard the military debates there. Then he goes on 
to describe what he calls a "water-melon" campaign of the Michi- 
gan militia. His speech contains one burst of satirical and mock- 
heroic declamation, which, though well-known, I must be per- 
mitted to quote. He said : 

"We all, in fancy, see the gentleman from Michigan in that most 
dangerous and glorious event in the life of a militia general on the peace 
establishment — a parade day; the day for which all the other days of 
his life seem to have been made! We can see the troops in motion; 
umbrellas, hoe and axe handles, and other like deadly implements of war 
overshadowing all the field; when lo ! the leader of the host approaches; 

'Far off his coming shines.' 
His plume, white, after the fashion of the great Bourbon, is of ample 



526 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

length, and reads its doleful history in the bereaved necks and bosoms 
of forty neighboring hen-roosts !" 

But in appreciating the fun we must not lose sight of the 
sterHng sense in this remarkable speech. It had only "wit enough 
to keep it sweet." 

It came to be quite the custom for the rival parties to hold 
meetings in the same town upon the same day. This started, 
probably, by way of joint debates, which frequently degenerated 
into rival meetings. I have a letter from the Hon. Samuel F. 
Vinton to Mr. Ewing (dated September lo, 1840), which gives 
a lively account of one of these affairs, as follows : 

"The Whigs of Athens had written to you and myself and I be- 
lieve to Murphy to come and meet a challenge which the loco-focos had 
put out for a debate yesterday with Allen and Shannon. I went. In 
the .morning, before going to the grounds, they backed out, pretending 
to make a difficulty about terms. I sent word to them that I would meet 
them on any terms they might name. They refused. I went down to 
the grounds and before the speaking began challenged the zvliole cara- 
van, told them to take their own terms ; they publicly declined. I then 
told them they must consider themselves backed out. The Whigs shouted 
over them and hallooed backed out; crowed and bantered — some hallooed 
Petticoat Allen. They took it all as quiet as lambs. I then told the Whigs 
I would address them at the Court House. We formed a procession in 
front of them, took off more than one-half of the assembly, and spent 
the day in speeches and crowing." 

A letter from Thomas Corwin (dated September 12th, 1840), 
describes a joint debate at Zanesville as follows: 

"They had a real flare-up here last night. Taylor and Mathiot 
addressed the people by agreement, half an hour each, and Goddard 
was to close the case. He went reading Taylor's bank votes from the 
legislative journal, including his negative votes on the individual re- 
sponsibility clause, etc., until the General and his folks became furious 
and called out to leave, as Goddard's half hour had expired. Charley 
went on and two meetings sprung up, each addressed by its own 
orators. Amongst other things Goddard talked of M — 's drawing cash 
twice from the State Treasury some years ago, whereupon the Colonel 
talks of caning and all that to-day. You must know there is a two-days' 
muster here, ending to-day. The General is now out at the grounds and 
I have not yet seen him. As to the aforesaid caning, you know that is only 



Ohio Centennial. 527 

in my eye. As to the charge, what is said is said, it will remain, for our 
friend Goddard is not the man to back out when he sets down his foot." 

Doubtless there was much provocation for the cry of the 
Loco-focos against the "log-cabin foolery" of the Whigs, but they 
were themselves a good second. Senator Allen went about Ohio 
with Colonel Richard M. Johnson, then Vice-President, holding 
him up as the real hero of the battle of the Thames, and calling 
upon him to show his wounds. A specimen of Johnson's oratory 
has been preserved in a letter written from Piqua shortly after 
the close of the campaign, from which I quote as follows : 

"Colonel Richard M. Johnson delivered a speech among us, in 
which he said: 'I love the Germans and I love the Irish, for just as soon 
as they touch our soil they become good Democrats, and I love the 
democracy. If the democracy says, 'Possum up the gum stump,' I say, 
'Possum up the gum stump"; if democracy says, 'Kooney in the hollow,' I 
say, 'Kooney in the hollow.' I go with the democracy." 

General Harrison made a personal canvass. He was the first 
presidential candidate to do so ; and, referring to this in his speech 
at Chillicothe, he deprecated the necessity for it lest it should 
prove the establishment of a bad precedent, but added : 

"I am here because I am the most persecuted and calumniated in- 
dividual now living; because I have been slandered by reckless oppo- 
nents to the extent that I am devoid of every qualification, physical, mental 
and moral, for the high place to which at least a respectable portion of my 
fellow-citizens have nominated m.e." 

A portion of one of his tours is stated in one of the Cin- 
cinnati papers, as follows : On the afternoon of Friday, he passed 
from Chillicothe to Lancaster ; on Saturday from Lancaster to 
Somerset and back, speaking three hours at Somerset and travel- 
ing thirty-three miles ; on Monday from Lancaster to Circleville ; 
on Tuesday from Circleville to Columbus ; leaving Columbus on 
Wednesday, he reached Cincinnati on Thursday, after twenty- 
four consecutive hours of traveling. This was cited to give the 
lie to the cry of "granny petticoats," as the Loco-focos called 
him. Senator Allen had started this nickname. Just before the 
battle of the Thames some Indian deserters had reported that 
General Proctor had promised his Indian allies to turn Harri- 



528 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

son over to them should he be captured. Harrison retorted that 
when he should capture Proctor the Indians would be permitted 
to dress the British General like a squaw. And Senator Allen re- 
lated how the ladies of Chillicothe presented Harrison with a pet- 
ticoat in token of his courage. In reply to this General Murphy, 
of Chillicothe, in the Scioto Gazette of January 20, 1836, pub- 
lished a savage attack upon Allen. 

The amenities have grown in politics since that day, when 
Whigs and Loco-focos held little social intercourse. The cam- 
paign was marked by much bitterness and by one tragedy. At 
the Baltimore convention, Thomas H. Laughlin, a marshal of the 
Whig procession, was killed while trying to prevent a gang of 
ruffians from breaking through the line. 

But underneath all the roistering, rollicking and horseplay, 
underneath all the savagery of political warfare, there was on the 
part of the Whigs a deep and abiding feeling that our institu- 
tions were endangered by usurpations of the Executive and that 
they were rallying under a great and popular leader to save them. 

As John A. Wise put it, it was "Union of the Whigs for the 
sake of the Union." It was the cause of American liberty which 
they rallied to sustain. To quote from a letter by Mr. Ewing 
(May 12, 1840) : 

"It is indeed the cause of self-government, the true Republican 
principle, the supremacy of the popular will acting by and through its 
constitutional agents, that we seek to reinstate and sustain against irre- 
sponsible and despotic power. 

"We maintain the supremacy of the constitution which that power 
tends to subvert. We go for the protection of property, of labor and its 
hard earned fruits, against the wild spirit of destruction which is clearly 
taking possession of our fair land and blasting the energies of the people. 

"We maintain the freedom of opinion, of thought, and action, in 
politics as in everything else. We maintain it against the tyranny of 
party, the most absolute and unrelenting that ever fettered the human 
mind. 

"We go for the freedom of elections and require them to be un- 
controlled by executive interference; that an electioneering corps of exec- 
utive officers paid out of the public purse shall be no longer suffered to 
pervade and infest our land. 

"We go for the ancient democratic principle of appointment to 
office, for the service of the country and not the service of the party. 



Ohio Ccntemiial. 529 

We claim the restoration of the ancient test 7^ lie capable? is he honest f 
is he faithful to the Constitution f instead of that which has usurped 
its place, and which practically is this — 'Is he loud? is he reckless? 
will he go through thick and thin for the party?' 

"We demand the safe keeping of the public money and that it be 
not entrusted or continued in the hands of men who consider it and 
treat it as spoils. 

"We go for retrenchment and reform, in solemn truth, and not as 
a mere ^atch-word of party — our suffering country requires it — the 
people demand it, and they know how to compel obedience. 

"And we have selected from among the great and good of this 
mighty nation a well-tried patriot and an honest man who stands forth 
the exponent, the visible representation of our principles; and with one 
heart and one voice we unite in his support. Long as I have known and 
highly as I prize him, I need not speak to you, citizens of Indiana, of his 
merits. Forty years of his valued life has been devoted to our com- 
mon service. In peace, in the councils of the nation he has been the 
advocate and friend, in war he has been the victorious defender, of the 
now great and powerful West, and the battlefield on which you meet is 
one enduring monument of his fame." 

The appeal was to all "who duly appreciate civil liberty" and 
were "identified with the great cause of constitutional freedom ;" 
to all who would "unite in putting down the revolutionary dy- 
nasty now in power and in bringing again to the people the con- 
stitution which the present executive, like the past, has trampled 
tinder foot." 

One call for a meeting says (New Lisbon, Aug. 5, 1840) : 

"The present alarming degree of executive encroachment on the 
reserved rights of the people — its reckless disregard of the constitutional 
checks placed upon it in the other coordinate branches — its entire 
abandonment of the first principles of a popular and representative gov- 
ernment — and its settled determination to merge every consideration of 
patriotism and national policy in a pitiful scramble for place and power 
on the part of the President and of his political favorites — call loudly, 
we think, to the people to rise in their strength — in their sovereign 
capacity, and assert and maintain their rights and liberties, and to rebuke 
those who have so wantonly disregarded the best interests of those over 
whom they have been appointed to rule." 

In a call signed, among others, by Millard Fillmore, for a 
meeting at Buffalo in October, the committee say : 
34 o. c. 



630 OJiio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

"We feel that we are approaching a crisis in the political history 
of this country, second only to that great struggle that gave us inde- 
pendence and freedom." 

The distingtiished Whig manufacttirer and philanthropist of 
Massachusetts, Abbott Lawrence, in a private letter of congrat- 
ulation on the election, says (Boston, Nov. 14, 1840) : 

"We have chosen General Harrison President of the United States, 
M^hich gives confidence to the capitalists and will shortly produce an 
effect upon the lahor of the country. You have done nobly in Ohio — • 
but I pray you not to forget that the old Bay State has brought out the 
spirit of '76 and sustained her character gloriously." 

At the Baltimore convention Mr. Webster spoke as follows : 

"The States are here, everyone of them, through their representa- 
tives. The old thirteen of the Republic are here from every city and 
county, between the hills of Vermont and the rivers of the south. The 
new thirteen, too, are here, without a blot or a stain upon them. The 
twenty-six States are here. No local or limited feeling has brought 
them here, no feeling but an American one ■ — ■ a hearty attachment to the 
country. We are here with the common sentiment and the common feeling 
that we are one people. We may assume that we belong to a country 
where one part has a common feeling and a common interest with the 
other. . . . 

"We are called upon to accomplish, not a momentary victory, but 
one which should last at least half a century. It was not to be expected 
that every year, or every four years, would bring together such an assem- 
blage as we have before us. The revolution should be one which should 
last for years, and the benefits of which should be felt forever. Let us, 
then, act with firmness. Let us give up ourselves entirely to this new 
revolution." 

And Henry Clay said : 

"We received our liberty from our revolutionary ancestors, and we 
are bound in all honor to transfer it, unimpaired, to our posterity. Should 
Mr. Van Buren be re-elected, the struggle of restoring the country to 
its former glory would be an almost hopeless one." 

Lastly, I cjuote an editorial from the Harrison Eagle (Taun- 
ton, Mass., Oct. 31, 1840) : 



Ohio Centennial. 531 

"Freemen ! Awake ! 

Friends — Americans — Patriots — Citizens — 

You, who have wives and children, who look up to you for protection and 
support — you who have toiled on to the middle age of life — prospering 
and to prosper under our glorious institutions. Young men — you who have 
just started upon your untried career — you who are not born to wealth, 
and have nothing to depend upon but your good names, unblemished 
reputations, and the credit system for your ultimate success and prosperity 
in life — one and all, who value the honor, safety -and glory of your coun- 
try, and would rescue her from a piratical band of spoilers — who would 
preserve, cherish, maintain, and transmit to posterity unimpaired, the 
privileges and immunities secured to you by the toil, blood and martyr- 
dom of tTie heroes of the revolution, our patriotic fathers — come up 
manfully, boldly, fearlessly to the rescue. Form in solid columns — let 
not one single man, lame, crippled, halt or blind, who loves his country, 
stay away. Come one, come all, to the rescue. March up undaunted to 
the ballot box, on the ninth day of next November, and deposit your 
votes for Harrison and Tyler — and by so doing, you will brand with the 
seal of your condemnation — agrarianism — blasphemy — atheism — Brown- 
sonism — and Van Burcnism in Old Bristol. 

"Fear not — falter not • — pause not. A glorious victory awaits you, ' 
if you but perform your duty — sleep not upon your posts — keep the 
watch-fires of liberty burning — put on your armor, and rally with brave 
indomitable hearts for the approaching contest — cleave down the temples 
of false prophets and false gods, and let them mingle with the dust — 
scatter the priests who have burned strange incense upon our altars like 
chaff before the popular whirlwind of your indignation — and then shall 
your country once more be free — and the car of State roll on in tri- 
umph manned by the friends of liberty and prosperity, and under the 
command of the veteran patriot and the honest Farmer Willi.mvi Henry 
Harrison." 

Nor was this all overwrought political declamation. Within 
■fifteen years the executive was overriding the will of the people 
in Kansas ; and, twenty years after, the very existence of the 
nation was put to the hazard of the sword. But it is unneces- 
sary to impute to the Whigs foreknowledge ; there were many live 
issues crying out for settlement. The twenty thousand federal 
offices were filled with men, all of one party, and aggressively 
partisan ; the national-hanking system had been broken up ; the 
currency of multitudes of state banks was depreciated or worth- 



582 O'nio Ar:h. und His. Society i^ublicalions. 

less ; forty millions of surplus in the national treasury 4iad been 
distributed among the States ; the revennes had decreased ; the 
expenses which had been $13,000,000 per annum during J. Q. 
Adams' administration, had increased under Van Buren to %'^y,- 
000,000 ; the federal government, apparently, was on the verge of 
bankruptcy ; wages had declined, in some cases as much as 
one-half ; the cost of living had increased ; and it was estimated 
that a million men were out of employment. To cap all. de- 
falcations, like those of Price and Swartwout, were extremely 
common. A single document communicated to Congress by the 
Secretary of the Treasury contained a list of more than fifty de- 
faulting sub-treasurers, called "leg-treasurers," the sums vary- 
ing from one thousand to more than one hundred thousand 
dollars. 

Such was the campaign and such the hero. How deeply the 
people had been stirred may be judged from the fact that the total 
vote at this election was nearly one million larger than at the 
election of 1836. Harrison's majority on the popular vote was 
about 150,000, and in the Electoral College he had nearly four- 
fifths of the electors. 

The President called about him a cabinet of great ability : 
Daniel Webster, Secretary of State ; Thomas Ewing, Secretary of 
the Treasury; John Bell, of Tennessee, afterward candidate for 
President on the Bell and Everett ticket, Secretary of War; 
George E. Badger, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy ; 
Francis Granger, of New York, Postmaster-General ; and John J. 
Crittenden, of Kentucky, Attorney-General. 

In just one month, came the sad death of the President. 
Nothing had been done except to deal with the ravenous horde 
of office-seekers, whose importunities were largely responsible for 
his death. The state of public opinion in Ohio on the distri- 
bution of the offices may be surmised from the statement that, 
on the basis of population, aside from the postoffices, she was 
entitled to 642 places in the public service, and actually had 
only 137. 

The President was distressed by the attitude of his party 
toward the public offices. But the Van Buren administration, as 



Ohio Centennial. 533 

already indicated, retained or appointed many unfit men. Edwin 
P. Whipple, in a lecture delivered in 1845, refers to the "spec- 
tacle of gentlemen taking- passage for France or Texas, with bags 
of the public gold in their valises." Along the same line is the 
following defence of the removals which I find among Mr. Ew- 
ing's memoranda : 

"There was also another reason and a more just one for this opinion 
of the pubHc and I may say mandate of the popular will. It had been the 
policy of the party just thrust from power to retain in office none but 
their active political adherents, those who would go for them thoroughly 
in all things; and the performance of official duty was far less requisite 
to a tenure of office than electioneering services. Hence the offices had 
become for the most part filled with brawling, offensive political partisans 
of a very low moral standard, their official duties performed by substitutes 
or not performed at all. ... It was thought wise and prudent to 
make many changes, and by so doing to elevate, as far as possible, the 
official standard, and insure a more faithful execution of official duties." 

Some of the traditions of the cabinet are worth noting. In 
the correspondence of M. de Bacourt, the French minister, we get 
glimpses of Mr. Webster, rather awkward as Master-of-cere- 
monies, lining the foreign representatives along the wall in order 
of seniority in service and marching the President and Cabinet 
in, in single file, at the first diplomatic reception ; of Crittenden 
chewing tobacco and Badger smoking ; and of Bell, whom the 
minister chanced to meet at the home of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, throwing himself full length onto a sofa and putting 
his feet on the arm of a chair ; all very much to the disgust of the 
French minister. 

I remember a story of the first diplomatic reception which 
my father used to tell. Mr. Webster, who was much given to 
the grand manner, asked the Cabinet to meet at his office in the 
State Department, that they might pass in a body to the White 
House. He ranged them in the order which pleased him, himself 
first, little Mr. Badger last, and started the procession through the 
White-House grounds. There was one man in the line who felt 
himself misplaced. As they approached the White House Badger 
slipped around in front of Mr. Webster, and, assuming a particu- 



534 Ohio Arch, and His. Society Publications. 

larly irritating strut, led the way into the building-. The Cabi- 
net were shown into an ante-room, where they awaited the coming- 
of the President. Mr. Webster was magnificently arrayed in a blue 
coat and waistcoat, with brass buttons. As they were solemnly 
standing there. Badger stepped over to him and said: "Pardon 
me, Mr. Webster, but would you mind telling me how much that 
waistcoat cost ?" Mr. Webster, looking down upon him with 
good-humored disdain, exclaimed, "You egregious trifler !" 

When the Cabinet broke up by reason of the rupture with 
President Tyler over the bank-vetoes, Webster remained. Thouoh 
all the other members retired, his defection impaired immensely 
the force of their demonstration, and stren'2;thened the hands of the 
President. It led to bitter but temporary resentment. I find a 
memorandum in Mr. Ewing's hand which, though perhaps not 
quite germane, is so full of feeling that I cannot forbear to quote 
it. It was written in 1864. Speaking of Mr. Webster, he says: 

"The last time I met him, before some difference as to national 
policy cast a shade of unkindncss between us, was in the Supreme' 
Court. I was there attending to my causes; he in the Senate, but 
waiting for the coming on of some very important case. I met him 
every morning about eleven for nearly a month — the Senate sat at 
twelve ^ — and we walked behind the judges' seat and were social. One 
day I was detainrd at home. Next morning we met at the usual hour 
and as v/c shock hands, he said : 

'Cnc morn I missed him." 
This wr.s kindly cr.d handsome, and when I read that on his death- 
bed he asked for Gray's Elegy, the scene rushed upon my memory with a 
force that almost unmanned me. How often, — morning, noon and even- 
ing, — have I since missed him." 

While we praise those who have reached the highest 
place in our Government, it must not be forgotten that,' 
though only six Ohio men ever attained to that distinction, many 
have stood, capable, and ready to fill the office. Out of an aver- 
age voting population in Ohio, during the past hundred years, of 
about half a million, but a bare half-dozen have been chosen to 
the presidency ; only about one in one hundred thousand. I am 
reminded of an anecdote told me of President Hayes by Mr. John 
Brisben Walker: ^^ ^ ^ime ^^-b'^'-i durino- the Hayes administra- 
tion the secretaryshi':! of w-m- fell v^cnt, Mr. Walker, among; 



Ohio Centennial. 535- 

others, approached the President with the suggestion that he ap- 
point as Secretary Mr. Murat Halstead, of Cincinnati. Knowing 
that the President would question the propriety of making two ap- 
pointments to the Cabinet from the same State, Mr. Walker armed 
himself with precedents to sustain it, and when General Hayes 
raised the question, he cited them. "Yes," said the President, "I 
know that there are precedents for the appointment of two men 
from the same State to the Cabinet. But can you find a precedent 
for the appointment of an Ohio Secretary of War, when the 
President and Secretary of the Treasury are from Ohio ; an 
Ohioan is General of the army, another Lieutenant-general ; when 
the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and one of 
tlie associate justices are from Ohio; when an Ohio man is min- 
ister to France and another minister to Japan?" — and so on 
through a long line of his fellow-statesmen all filling high offices. 
We honor the six Ohio Presidents for their ability in snatch- 
ing the great and coveted place. We honor them more for the 
patriotism and capacity which they brought to the discharge of 
its duties. They will be remembered because their careers and 
character are incentives to high ideals and great deeds. But they 
interest us, above all, as types of that native American people, 
which, in the brief span of one hundred years, changed twenty- 
five millions of acres of savage wilderness into this progressive, 
happy, proud commonwealth. 



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